patriotism

Today is American Independence Day, and once again, I’m compelled to remind us of the importance of patriotism in a world that is slowly but surely rejecting it as I write this. Exactly last year I wrote about the importance of national identity, and in that same spirit, I now write about why America deserves its place as the greatest nation on Earth.

Every Independence Day, or rather every year close to that time, you’re bound to get some sour grapes leftist and cultural Marxists whinging about how “America was never great”, or they’ll use the day as yet another stick with which to beat the President with. You get leftists demonising patriotism on the time of the year when people want to celebrate it. Of course we know why they constantly denigrate the American patriotic spirit, and that’s because they despise America. They despise everything America stands for because America isn’t like socialist Europe, and most Americans don’t want the country to be like socialist Europe.

This miss everything about what makes America great in the first place. What makes America great is not just the primacy of liberty in American culture, but also the opportunity for ordinary people to make something of themselves. America has a proud history of hardworking people (Henry Ford for example) busting their backs and using their free time to put their ideas into practice and make something of themselves. Many of America’s industries were born from hardworking people who were given the freedom to try out their ideas in the marketplace, and their success created jobs and wealth to an extent not seen before in the other powerful nations.

The greatness of America is also proven by the character of the American people. John F. Kennedy once said of Americans:

“The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor, and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.”

I know from experience that Americans are generally optimistic. Not all of them of course, but I have noticed that Americans tend to be more optimistic that us pessimistic Brits. Despite what Hollywood and the left-wing media might tell you about Americans (including the amount of times people lump everyone in with the South), most Americans are decent, hard-working people just like us. In a way, the American people make America great, despite what the left will tell you.

The left has spent much of its energies downplaying and demonising American exceptionalism, because they cannot accept the reality that America really is the best country on Earth. For them to accept it means also accepting that their ideology will only harm the people they are trying to help, and they would be forced to abandon it, which they won’t do even if the facts are in their favour. Besides, American exceptionalism didn’t come out of the air. It came on the back of America’s many achievements.

They created the first society with liberty as one of its founding principles, and one that enshrined freedom of speech and expression.

They brought us much of the technology we take for granted, such as cell phones, personal computers, and the Internet.

They led the ideological battle against communism during the Cold War, and together with Britain and West Germany, they won.

America has done more to liberate the world than any other country.

America has created a society more welcoming of people of all different backgrounds than any other in the world, and most of the immigrants who come there want to be part of the culture.

Of course there’s a whole laundry list of achievements you could attribute to America, but you wouldn’t necessarily need it. The truth of American exceptionalism is self-evident. Why else would people like myself want to emigrate to America? If America was a horrible place to live in, why would anyone want to live there?

I’m personally sick of the idea that “America was never great”, and idea usually spouted by entitled leftist hipsters who are pissed off that the government is no longer interested in giving them free stuff to compensate for the fact that their liberal arts degrees won’t give them a paying job. These Starbucks Marxists in places like HuffPost or Vox are so bitter that they want all of us to be as bitter as they are, and they don’t care how good they have it in America. But this year, even as leftists continue to paint America as a nation in disarray (which, to be honest, is pure propaganda), remember that it’s all just agitprop, because America was always great, and I have faith that it will continue being a great nation in the future, unless of course the government screws it up again.

Like this:

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s official coronation. On this day, I ask one question: What’s the big deal?

Five months ago, I wrote a post on why we no longer need the royal family, and how they have been delegated to celebrity status. One thing I’m so sick of is the way the British media has made both this year’s anniversary and last year’s Diamond Jubilee both seem bigger than they are. For God’s sake, every TV guide magazine released over the last week featured a picture of the Queen.

Why? The Queen is basically an overpaid celebrity, and yet the media paints her as an incorruptible saint just because she’s the goddamn Queen. Didn’t our parents learn anything the Sex Pistols? Yes the Sex Pistols were an overrated, purely image-based band, but they carried the one message that was universal in punk rock: never trust the establishment.

And yet the British news outlets are the cheerleaders for the royal family. What kind of message are we sending to kids? Are we telling them it’s wrong to think for yourself if you don’t worship the royal family? Are we honestly saying that there should always be someone much richer than us doing nothing other than telling us how we should behave? Hell no!

For me, the Queen is nothing more than a false idol that we are made to worship by the liars in the government and the media. If we were given the choice, we wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the royals. So if you’re asking, I won’t be celebrating the coronation. I’d rather be a free thinker than a mindless follower of the hype.

There was a time when kings actually had a role. Centuries ago, a king would have been the most powerful man in the country (when we were still a Catholic country, the king would have been less powerful than the Pope). The King made all the decisions, and didn’t give a damn about ideology (which, as we know it, wasn’t even invented until the French Revolution). The only bias the king had was his religion. Not only that, but the king was perfectly willing to go to war with his fellow man, as demonstrated by Richard the Lionheart during the Crusades.

Nowadays, the Royal Family is a purely aristocratic circle that does absolutely nothing other than:

Evade taxes

Parade around foreign countries (some of which the Queen still owns)

Trying to convince everyone that they’re still worthy of their existence.

What I’m trying to say is that their nothing more than celebrities, you know, the people we should be despising. In an effort to maintain their existence in a democratic society which, logically, doesn’t need them anymore, they’ve become a part of our celebrity culture, another thing we should be despising. They’ve been doing this since the Second World War ended, and democracy became more prominent. The status of the royal family as celebrities has become more profound as the reign Queen Elizabeth II continued, and as Princess Diana’s popularity continued to rise.

For me, the trashy, celebrity part of the royal family has reached a point where it completely swallows up every other aspect of the royal family, as if they only exist to be treated the same as celebrities, except for the fact that the British still hold them as sacred. For God’s sake guys, the royal family is out of touch with the real world, today’s world. And yet we still think they’re important, and perfect. Not only that, but the media expects us to worship the royals like the gods they aren’t, whilst simultaneously subjecting them to the same disgrace on the tabloids as celebrities.

Oh give it a rest will you?

Even such “patriotic” catchphrases as “God save the queen” are now nothing more than corporate slogans placed on cheesy merchandise to sell crap. This culture allows a complete nobody, who did nothing of any worth to gain the praise of millions of idiots. I’m of course talking about Kate Middleton, a woman who’s otherwise so worthless, that topless photos of her will instantly magnetize attention to her, like there’s nothing better for us to focus on.

Most people will say that we need the royals because it brings tourism to the country. Excuse my French, but I think the Olympics already accomplished that. And let’s be reasonable. If tourism is the only reason we keep the royal family (aside from the trashy celebrity culture), then something is truly wrong. Not to mention the fact that the royals are extremely rich. All the money they have could have easily gone towards curing cancer or AIDS, and people think that somehow the royals are more deserving of it?

Good God, what has our society come to? It values a dying, useless circle of aristocrats on gold chairs rather than doctors who save lives. It values trashy celebrity culture over the people who help their community everyday, and all of what I have said, is why I believe we don’t need the royal family anymore, and may we be better without them.

I don’t know about you, but I hated the year 2012. It was pretty damn unsufferable, but maybe 2013 will be worse, but I’ll have to wait another 365 days to find out. Anyhow, this post is about the worst parts of a crappy year. Let the countdown begin.

The whole SOPA/PIPA business – I’m sure people will remember the whole ugly business with SOPA/PIPA legislation. Basically, America wanted to pass a law that allowed internet censorship as a means of preventing copyright infringement. Needless to say, everyone hated it, and only big corporations would support it. What do I hate about it? Wikipedia blacked out it’s English website in protest. That meant that for one whole day, I couldn’t get top quality information for me to use in school (yes, 2012 was my last year in sixth form). I appreciate

My 4th art brief – I did Art as an A-level course between 2010 and 2012. In Year 13, my Art course began turning into a hellhole. Why? In 2011, I got given the “what is art?” brief. I myself don’t care what defines art, but in order to even pass, I had to care. When I finished that brief in January, I was relieved. But even harder was the task of deciding what to do for the fourth art brief. I decided to do it on food. The problem with that is that I had no idea what to do from the beginning, and I had until March 26 to prepare for it. The end result is what I myself am not proud of; a tacky, rushed, and barely thought through project that couldn’t even use to make fun of Jamie Oliver. It set my Art grade back from B to C.

Kony 2012 – Dear God, what were they thinking? If you’ve never heard of it (which is unlikely to say the least), Kony 2012 is a video by the Invisible Children group, which aimed to get people to take action against Ugandan warlord Joesph Kony. The problem with that is that he hasn’t been an issue since 2006. Not to mention that Invisible Children is notorious for oversimplifying events, and even manipulating facts in order to brainwash naive, Facebook-era teens into their miserable little cause. The worst part is that celebrities have been getting on the Kony bandwagon, once again trying to prove their “moral superiority”.

Expectations, expectations – After having turned 18, a whirlwind of expectations were created. College, “growing up”, alcohol, you name it. It was as though, culturally speaking, I had to enter adulthood overnight. In the end, I didn’t. But what I did do was reflect on how the transition to adulthood would, if unchecked, mean the slow decay of everything I was in childhood, and I didn’t even have all the answers I was looking for just yet.

Family Guy’s 10th Season – On May 20, Family Guy’s 10th season began airing on BBC Three in the UK. What’s so bad about it? Everything that could possible be bad about. I already talked about Family Guy at the start of this month, but I want to give a brief summary of what I thought of season 10. The episodes were painfully unfunny, and one of them just proved once and for all that Meg is not taken seriously at all, and that there are no plans to take her seriously as a character. Shock tactics are abundant in season 10, and it’s the first season of Family Guy that was utter garbage.

The Diamond Jubilee – Never have I seen such a mindless display of UK patriotism, worshiping such a pointless icon. The BBC wouldn’t stop shoving their Diamond Jubilee crap down the nation’s throat, and I didn’t even like it. Did I worship the Queen on June 4? Hell no, I was revising for my ICT A-level, something that was a much better use of my time, painful though it may be.

The freaking Olympics – Oh crap! I couldn’t stand the Olympics. It also meant that there was nothing good on TV for 2 weeks. Oh, and lets not forget one thing: Everyone in London was forced to be mindlessly patriotic as London temporarily devolved into a police state. In all the hype, nobody ever talked about the negative aspects of the Olympics. For example, when Greece hosted the 2004 Olympics, what happened after a few years? Their economy collapsed, and you can plainly see what happened then. Of course, other factors are to blame but that is beside the point.

The rise of Gangnam Style – In August, the PSY pop song Gangnam Style went viral, and has since come to break the record of highest views on YouTube ever. It’s bad because the song is terrible. It’s not even music, it’s stupid, it’s annoying, and it’s popularity is a sign that all culture as we know it is on the verge of total, memetic decay. This is made even worse because politicians everywhere are trying to imitate the dance moves associated with the song (which themselves have become a cultural phenomenon), and the song makes a crapload of money as it stands.

The Valleys – As if MTV hasn’t had enough of the “tanned skank” reality TV shows (Jersey Shore and Geordie Shore), they somehow thought it would be a good idea to make another one, this one in Wales. On September 25, The Valleys was launched. I’ve never watched it, because I knew right from the beginning that it would be extremely awful. Everyone I knew hated it (at least in college), and it was just a carbon copy of Geordie Shore, witch itself was a copy of Jersey Shore. This one, however, bore the risk of ruining Wales’ image. As someone born in South Wales, does anyone know how offended I would be? The idea was outrageous, and shows like these, should be banned because they damage the reputation of the areas they’re set in, and they contribute to the decay of culture.

The US presidential campaign – I live in the UK, but I get all the information I’d ever need on this subject. Basically, all it consisted of was just mindless aggression from one side and the other, and none of it is ever constructive criticism. If aliens came to visit America during the election campaign, they’d probably shrivel in disgust (and terror if they’re that peaceful). It’s not as though Mitt Romney was a good choice for Republican nominee, he couldn’t even tell his story, let alone keep it straight. It’s things like this that make my abandon all ideology as a whole.

The release of Call of Duty: Black Ops II – I’ve never played any Call of Duty game, but I know what I hate. The hype surrounding Call of Duty: Black Ops II says a lot about how gaming culture has devolved into what it is now. It’s basically the same, in principle, as the other Call of Duty games, and the reviews are so artificial, that I worry that Activision might have evil ambitions to control industry.

The so-called “Mayan apocalypse” (and how it never happened) – I’ve already talked about the 2012 phenomenon, and how all apocalypse predictions are actually fake. But there is one thing I would like to add. On May 12, a missing piece of the Mayan calendar was discovered, and it proved that the Mayans never believed that the world would end on December 21, 2012. But then why were people still preaching on about it, in the face of incriminating evidence? It doesn’t matter, because the world didn’t end 10 days ago, and it certainly won’t end within our lifetimes.

In conclusion, as far as culture was concerned, 2012 was a pretty crappy year. Before I bid you adieu for tonight, let me list the cultural atrocities I forgot to list today:

The Total Recall remake

South Park season 16

Lady Gaga and Julian Assange in the Simpsons

John Carter

Disney purchasing LucasFilms

David Cameron pretending to care about every freaking global issue

Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”

Every song in the “Take Me Home” album by 1Direction

James Arthur

Helen Flanagan

Windows 8

iPad 3

The Sun on Sunday

The Simpsons season 23

Everything involving the 2012 phenomenon

Little Mix

“Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jespen

“Starships” by Nicki Minaj

What a crappy year this was. Will 2013 by any better? I sure freaking hope so! For SMAGIC, it will certainly be better, with more topics, and more hits.